Too Hot to Handle New York cop Sam O'Shaughnessy preferred his females big, brunette and lusty. The petite blonde he found stranded was none of the above. Yet the moment prim Lisa Collier straddled his hot black Harley, Sam was bewitched. Bothered. And definitely bewildered. Who was this pint-size Venus distracting him from his dangerous mission? Was she enmeshed in a murderous narcotics ring? To find out, Sam had to get close to her. Close enough to know she felt soft as a cloud, delicate as a moonbeam…. Still, if Lisa was dirty, Sam would have to take her down. Otherwise, his wild, angry desire would surely do him in.
A cafe waitress and the Phantom Lady, Miranda has two identities. One night, while infiltrating a certain party, those identities are compromised by Raymond, a very wealthy Earl.
A tale of family secrets and the damaging corruption of the British legal system from the author of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. In Bleak House, Charles Dickens not only pries apart the stultifying and ponderous conduct and contracts of British moneyed society, but also takes specific aim at an English judicial system in desperate need of modernization and reform. Featuring the voice of Esther Summerson—Dickens’s only female narrator—the story unfolds around a generations-old legal case involving numerous inheritances. It is Esther’s hidden birthright that sparks the drama, bringing to light such memorable characters as the Lady Dedlock, haunted by her shameful past; John Jarndyce, whose seemingly infinite kindness is driven by hidden guilt; and the sly lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn, who secretly relishes the power his position gives him over his clients. Weaving a complex web of plots and subplots, Dickens created one of his most dramatically satisfying and boldly ambitious narratives in Bleak House, as the novel offers a scathing indictment of the mores and moral injustices of his time. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Three of Dickens’s most compelling orphan protagonists—Oliver Twist, Pip, and Esther Summerson—in three of his greatest novels. Perhaps no writer in the English language is more closely associated with orphaned characters than Charles Dickens. The trials and dangers for children without parental protection play a significant part in nearly all his work, as both a source of highly entertaining melodrama and pointed social criticism. Oliver Twist: Having endured deplorable conditions in an orphans’ workhouse, Oliver Twist eventually escapes to London, where he falls in with the Artful Dodger, one of a gang of young pickpockets led by the criminal Fagin. Dickens’s heartrending descriptions of institutional abuses as well as the brutal reality of life on London’s streets for homeless children argued strongly for social reform. Great Expectations: Dickens’s penultimate novel centers on the orphan Pip and his anonymous benefactor, whom he assumes is the wealthy and eccentric recluse Miss Havisham, and whose adopted daughter, the beautiful but emotionally distant Estella, he falls hopelessly in love with. John Irving called it “the most wonderful and most perfectly worked-out plot for a novel in the English language.” Bleak House: Dickens’s masterful satire of the English judicial system features his only female narrator, Esther Summerson, who is raised as an orphan. Esther’s true identity forms much of the mystery and drama of a complex novel involving an endless legal case—“the family curse”—and all the lives it affects. As an entertainer and a moralist, Dickens utilized his vulnerable young protagonists to great effect, creating some of the most unforgettable characters in the history of literature. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly instalments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by a mostly omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly, but depressive John Jarndyce, and the childish and disingenuous Harold Skimpole, as well as the likeable but imprudent Richard Carstone.
Bleak House, completed by Dickens in 1853, tells several interlocking story-lines and features a host of colorful characters. Though very difficult to summarise, the novel centers around the decades-long legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, involving the fair distribution of assets of a valuable estate. The case is mired in the legal quagmire of the Court of Chancery, whose byzantine and sluggish workings Dickens spares no effort to expose and condemn. Dickens also exposes the miserable condition of the poor, living in squalid, pestilential circumstances. The novel’s heroine is Esther Summerson, whose parentage is unclear and who has been brought up by a cold and strict godmother, who tells her only: “Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.” On the death of her godmother, she is given an education through the unexpected intervention of a Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, whom she has never met. When she comes of age, she is appointed as a companion to Ada, one of two young people who are “wards of Chancery,” whose fates depend on the outcome of the legal struggle and who are taken into guardianship by Mr. Jarndyce. The other ward Richard, despite Mr. Jarndyce’s frequent warnings, eventually goes astray by pinning all his hopes on a successful outcome of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We are also introduced to Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and to their cunning and suspicious lawyer, Mr. Tulkinghorn. He uncovers evidence that Lady Dedlock is not all she seems and determines to remorselessly pursue every lead to expose her secrets. The novel has a curious construction in that the first-person narrative of Esther, written in the past tense, is interleaved with many chapters written from the omniscient viewpoint and in the present tense. Several prominent critics such as G. K. Chesterton consider Bleak House to be Dickens’ finest novel, and it is often ranked among the best English-language novels of all time. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
